Youth

Isn’t it strange? Isn’t it? I think it is… I was seen as a monster, but not that long ago… Not that long ago, I was 14 and watching a sitcom and there was this girl, not much older than I was, and I thought she was the prettiest woman I had ever seen, I thought she was spring incarnate and it’s probably the first time I felt anything that remotely resembled love. One day, my parents asked me if I liked her and I stupidly, and innocently, said that I did, that I wish she could be my wife. My parents and my siblings laughed, and they seemed so happy that I had a crush on some actress. They kept saying: ‘Oh, my little son likes Alyssa!’ And, well: I did. I was embarrassed that they kept saying it, but it was true, so okay.

Then I turned 17 and I met a girl who was the same age as me and we kissed and we slept together and I thought I had met my soul-mate, we were so made for each other, it wasn’t even funny! Until she met Richard and thought he was leaner and hotter and sweeter than I was and left me for him. I was heart-broken, but I had my Nintendo to fall back on, so it was okay.

When I turned 22, I met my second long-term girlfriend. She was 21 and people said we made a beautiful couple and I really think we did, we were sweet and innocent and we also fucked like rabbits on death-row whenever we were alone. But then she met someone who was nicer and smarter and older, but that was okay, I was old enough to get wasted by then.

Then I moved to Europe, to a country where the age of consent was 15, and that’s so wrong and gross. But I was 25 and I was lonely and I was horny, so I fucked women and I fucked girls and I fucked kids. 15 to 24, they were all fair game and I tapped all them asses, because I could and because they were willing and because I could. I really could.

In my mind, I still thought of that actress, who was about the same age I was. In my mind, I was still that kid, longing after an actress who could have been my classmate.

Then things happened so fast…. One day, I was 37. Fuck. But I was still the same kid. I was still attracted to firm thighs, flat stomachs, soft lips and innocent eyes. Once upon a time, it was cute and sweet that I had those thoughts, but now it was just creepy and wrong and disturbing. My body had aged, my hair had thinned, but my mind had stayed the same.  I was still me, I was the same boy. A boy in a man’s body. How could I explain that? Well, I didn’t have to. My girlfriends were usually between 19 and 23, and yes: that was young. My friends, with their children and their grandchildren and sometimes as widower or more often than not divorces, well, I was envying them, sure: They had a family. But I know that deep down they were envying me because I was an almost 40-something and I was getting 20-something poon. And fuck: if that’s not happiness, then I don’t know what is.

Problem was: the older and fatter and uglier I got… Yes: uglier. They say an elderly man looks better than his young self, but that’s bullshit. Maybe you look better if you exercise every day or at least swim once in a while. But if you’re a fuck-up like me, sitting on your couch and drinking whiskies doesn’t make you age well, trust me. So, as I was getting older, I found myself disgusted by the women of my age: flabby skin, liver spots on their hands, saggy tits, fat soft asses. And the older I got, the better the young girls looked. And I don’t mean the 15 or 16 years olds (although a couple of my friends’ granddaughters, well forget about it: I’d tap them asses any day!). I mean the 22 year olds. Or even the 26 year olds. But by then I was just a dirty old man.

How did that happen? One minute I’m a teenager who likes a teenager and everyone thinks it’s so cute. The next minute, I’m still me, I still like young girls. But I’m 60-something so it’s not okay. Well, fuck.

Now I’m on my kitchen floor, my pasta are getting over cooked in the boiling water, my cat is somewhere or other cruising for pussy, literally. And the world is fading and that’s not cool. I’m old, but I want a few more hours. One more hour, so I can call my friends, okay: my acquaintances, okay: the people I talk to once in a while, and say good-bye. Just one more hour so I can call the girls I dream about every night, the girls who could never love me and who made me who I became. The ones, I dreamt about almost every night. Yes: I want to punch them in the face and smash their noses, but I mostly want to kiss them and hold their hands one last time. I want them to be near me. I want them next to me. I want one of them nearby. I want my fingertips to brush their young firm flesh one more time. But it’s much too late. I can already hear the worms eating my decaying flesh.

What almost makes me smile is to imagine them old as well, lonely or better yet: dead. That’s petty of me, I know. I’m such a child, aren’t I? But I can’t help thinking about them. About all the shes. All the hers. I say ‘all,’ but really, there were only two. Possibly three.

And I would really like one of them to remember me. But she won’t, she can’t. She won’t even know I’m gone. And if one day she hears of my demise, she’ll go: “Who? Oh, yeah… that name sounds kinda familiar. But I don’t know. Who cares anyway, right? Pour me some more wine, honey.”